# UGC Flows: the full text > Every written page on ugcflows.com in one file: the rate model, the glossary and every guide, generated from the same data the pages render. The short index is at https://www.ugcflows.com/llms.txt. ## UGC rates, the full model Source: https://www.ugcflows.com/ugc-rate-calculator Usage rights are the price and the filming is the deposit. A base rate is one video, organic use on the brand's own channels for 30 days, one round of changes. Multiply it by the usage row, add the add-on rows, and discount the base only for a batch. ### Base rate by deliverable | Video type | Length and shape | Base rate, organic 30 days | | --- | --- | --- | | Hook or short cut | Under 15 seconds. One idea, one take, usually cut into somebody else's ad. | $90 | | Standard UGC ad | 15 to 30 seconds. A hook and a demo, captioned, ready to run. | $150 | | Talking head or testimonial | 30 to 60 seconds to camera. Script, performance, and you have to hold a frame. | $200 | | How to, unboxing or sequence | 45 to 90 seconds. Several setups, a real edit, and b roll you have to shoot. | $260 | ### Usage rights multiplier | What the brand is buying | Multiplier | A standard 15 to 30 second ad | | --- | --- | --- | | Organic only, 30 days | x1 | $150 | | Paid ads, 30 days | x1.5 | $225 | | Paid ads, 90 days | x1.9 | $285 | | Paid ads, 6 months | x2.3 | $345 | | Paid ads, 12 months | x2.8 | $420 | | Perpetuity, all channels | x3.5 | $525 | ### Add ons | Add on | What is being handed over | Add to the multiplier | | --- | --- | --- | | Whitelisting or Spark ads | The ad runs from your handle, so your name is on their spend. | +40% | | Category exclusivity, 3 months | You cannot take a competing brand in that category for a quarter. | +30% | | Category exclusivity, 12 months | A year of turning down every rival in the lane. Price the year. | +60% | | Raw footage handed over | They can recut it forever into videos you never agreed to. | +25% | | Turnaround under 72 hours | It moves to the front of your week and something else moves back. | +25% | | You write the script | No brief to work from. The concept is the work. | +15% | | A second person on camera | You are paying somebody or spending somebody's afternoon. | +20% | Batch discount, applied to the base only and never to the licence: 10% off at two videos, 20% at five, 30% at ten. Each extra round of revisions past the first adds 10%. ## Glossary Every term below has its own page. The first sentence of each is the definition and stands alone. ### Brief Source: https://www.ugcflows.com/glossary/brief Also called: creative brief, campaign brief. A brief is the document a brand sends describing what they want made: the concept, the talking points, the format, the deliverables and the deadline. A good one names the hook, the three things that must be said, the length, the aspect ratio, whether captions are burned in, and how many rounds of changes are included. A bad one says "be authentic" and leaves everything else to be discovered during revisions. Read it for what is missing rather than what is there. The three clauses that decide the money are usually the ones not written down: the usage rights, the term, and whether raw footage is expected. Reply to a thin brief with the questions rather than the price. A brand that answers them has told you what to charge; one that will not is a brand whose revisions will be unbounded. What to watch for: A brief with no revision limit is a brief with unlimited revisions, and that is where a fairly paid job turns into an unpaid one. ### Buyout Source: https://www.ugcflows.com/glossary/buyout Also called: full buyout, content buyout. A buyout is a single payment that transfers broad or unlimited rights in the content to the brand, usually covering every channel with no end date. The word is used loosely. Sometimes it means a full transfer of copyright, sometimes it just means a perpetual licence, and the two are different: after a copyright transfer the video is not yours to post at all, not even in a portfolio. Always ask which one is meant and get it in writing. A licence, however broad, leaves you the owner. An assignment does not. If it is a real buyout, the price should reflect that this is the last money the video ever earns you. Treat it as the perpetual rate plus whatever the exclusivity and portfolio restrictions are worth on top. How it reads in a brief: "Creator hereby assigns all right, title and interest in the Content to Brand." That is an assignment, not a licence. What to watch for: A buyout that assigns copyright can strip your right to show the work in your own portfolio, which quietly costs you the next deal as well as this one. ### CPM bonus Source: https://www.ugcflows.com/glossary/cpm-bonus Also called: performance bonus, views bonus. A CPM bonus pays a creator a set amount per thousand views a video earns, on top of the flat fee, so a video that performs keeps paying after delivery. CPM stands for cost per mille, which is cost per thousand. A $2 CPM on a video that does 400,000 views is $800, paid on top of whatever the flat fee was. The three numbers that decide whether it is worth anything are the rate, the window and the cap. A $5 CPM sounds excellent until you read that it only counts views in the first seven days and stops at $250. The window is the part creators most often misread. "First 30 days of the video's life" and "during the campaign, which ends on the 30th" produce completely different money for a video posted on the 28th. Getting this right across four brands at once is exactly what [UGC Flows](/) was built to track. How it reads in a brief: "$1 CPM on TikTok, first 30 days, capped at $500 per video." Four numbers. Write all four down. What to watch for: A bonus that replaces the flat fee rather than adding to it is a common and legitimate structure, and it is worth far less than the same numbers added on top. ### Deliverable Source: https://www.ugcflows.com/glossary/deliverable Also called: deliverables, assets. A deliverable is one finished thing you owe the brand, counted precisely, so three videos and their vertical cutdowns is six deliverables rather than three. The number of deliverables is the number the invoice is built on, so it has to be written down in the same words on both sides. Ambiguity here is where scope creep starts. Count aspect ratio variants, hook variants and cutdowns as deliverables of their own, because each one is another export, another caption pass and another round of feedback. A brief asking for "3 videos with 3 hook options each" is nine. Raw footage, if it is being handed over, is a deliverable too, and one worth pricing. See raw footage (https://www.ugcflows.com/glossary/raw-footage). What to watch for: Hook variants and aspect ratio cutdowns get asked for after the quote is agreed, which is exactly why they belong in the quote. ### Exclusivity Source: https://www.ugcflows.com/glossary/exclusivity Also called: category exclusivity, non-compete. Exclusivity is a clause stopping you from working with competing brands in the same category for an agreed period, so it is paid time you cannot sell to anyone else. The thing to pin down is the category, because a brand will write it as widely as you let them. "Skincare" and "beauty" are not the same restriction, and "wellness" can be read to cover supplements, fitness apps and food. Price it against what the lane is worth to you. Three months of turning down every rival in your best category is worth roughly 30% on the deal; twelve months is worth double that, because it is most of a year of your highest paying work. It should always have a start date, an end date and a named category list. Exclusivity with no term is exclusivity forever, and it is the clause most likely to be paired with perpetuity (https://www.ugcflows.com/glossary/perpetuity) in the same sentence. How it reads in a brief: "Creator will not produce content for competing brands during the term." Ask them to list the competitors, in writing, and cap the list. What to watch for: A broad category with no end date can make a single $600 deal the reason you turn down a year of work in the lane you built. ### Flat fee Source: https://www.ugcflows.com/glossary/flat-fee Also called: base rate, per video rate. The flat fee is the fixed amount a brand pays for producing and delivering the videos, before any performance bonus and before any usage rights are priced in. It can be structured three ways: once for the whole job, per video, or as a monthly retainer. Per video is the commonest and the easiest to compare across brands. The flat fee is the number that gets negotiated, which is why it should not be carrying the licence. Quote the fee for the work and the licence as its own line, and a brand pushing back on price has something to trade with other than your day rate. Watch for a minimum views condition attached to it. Some deals say a video under a threshold earns no base fee at all, which turns a fixed payment into a second bonus. What to watch for: A flat fee quoted for "three videos" with no licence named is a flat fee that has silently included perpetual rights. ### Hook Source: https://www.ugcflows.com/glossary/hook Also called: opener, first three seconds. The hook is the opening of a UGC video, usually the first one to three seconds, whose only job is to stop the scroll before the viewer's thumb moves. It carries more weight than the rest of the video put together, because everything after it is only watched by the people the hook kept. Brands know this, which is why so many briefs ask for several hook options over one finished cut. In practice it is a spoken line, a visual, or both at once, and the best ones state a problem the viewer already has rather than introducing the product. The product arrives second. Because hooks are tested, they are also the cheapest thing a brand can ask for more of. Price each variant as its own deliverable (https://www.ugcflows.com/glossary/deliverable), because each one is another export. What to watch for: "Just give us a few hook options" is a request for several deliverables, and it arrives after the price has been agreed roughly nine times out of ten. ### Net terms Source: https://www.ugcflows.com/glossary/net-terms Also called: net 30, payment terms. Net terms are how many days after invoicing a brand has agreed to pay, so net 30 means payment is due thirty days from the invoice date. Net 30 is standard, net 15 is achievable with smaller brands, and net 60 or net 90 turns up with large ones and with agencies who are themselves waiting to be paid. The date the clock starts matters as much as the number. Net 30 from the invoice date and net 30 from approval are weeks apart if approval drags, and approval is the part you do not control. Put the terms on the invoice itself and put a late fee clause in the agreement even if you never enforce it. It changes the conversation on day 45 from a favour to a contract. How to invoice a brand for UGC (https://www.ugcflows.com/blog/ugc-invoice-guide) walks the whole document. What to watch for: Net terms that start on approval rather than on invoice give a slow approver an unlimited extension at your expense. ### Organic post Source: https://www.ugcflows.com/glossary/organic-post Also called: organic use, organic only. An organic post is one published without ad spend behind it, so it reaches only the accounts a platform shows it to for free. In a UGC licence, organic only is the narrowest and cheapest grant: the brand may post the video on their own account, and may not put budget behind it. It is the floor every other rate on the ladder is multiplied from. The distinction matters because a brand can move a video from organic to paid with one click and no further conversation, and nothing about the file changes when they do. The only thing stopping it is the clause. If a brand wants the option later, sell it later. A written renewal price for paid rights costs you nothing to offer and is often accepted, because it solves their problem without buying rights they may not use. What to watch for: Organic only is worth nothing as a term if the agreement does not also say what happens when they want to boost it, because the answer will otherwise be that they already did. ### Perpetuity Source: https://www.ugcflows.com/glossary/perpetuity Also called: in perpetuity, unlimited usage, buyout. Perpetuity means the brand's licence to use your video has no end date, so they can keep running it, including as a paid ad, forever and without paying again. It is the most expensive clause in a UGC contract and the cheapest one to slip into a paragraph, because it is one word. A video licensed in perpetuity is an asset the brand owns outright; a video licensed for 30 days is a post. Brands ask for it honestly most of the time. Their media team does not want to track expiry dates across two hundred creator assets, and a licence that lapses mid-campaign is a real operational problem for them. That is a reason to charge for it, not a reason to give it away. The number to hold in your head is roughly 3.5 times the organic-only rate for the same video. If the brand will not pay that, the counter is a long fixed term with a renewal price already written down, which solves their tracking problem and keeps the video worth something later. How it reads in a brief: "...a perpetual, irrevocable, transferable licence..." Transferable is the second word to catch: it means they can sell the right to someone else. What to watch for: Perpetual and exclusive in the same clause means you can never use the video in your own portfolio or take a competing brand, forever, for one flat fee. ### Rate card Source: https://www.ugcflows.com/glossary/rate-card Also called: pricing sheet, packages. A rate card is a published list of what a creator charges, and it is worth less than it looks because it fixes a price before the usage rights are known. The honest case for one is filtering: it keeps brands with no budget from spending a week of your time. That is real. The case against is that the same three videos are worth one price organic for 30 days and several times that as paid ads in perpetuity, and a printed card cannot know which is being asked for. So a published package gets negotiated down from and never up to. The middle ground is a floor rather than a menu. One line saying where packages start does the same filtering and leaves every real number still to be agreed. The rate calculator (https://www.ugcflows.com/ugc-rate-calculator) is for working out the real number once the brief arrives. What to watch for: A rate card with no usage rights column is a rate card that has priced perpetual rights at the organic rate. ### Raw footage Source: https://www.ugcflows.com/glossary/raw-footage Also called: raws, source files, unedited files. Raw footage is the unedited source clips from a shoot, and handing it to a brand lets them recut it into videos you never agreed to and never see. Most briefs ask for it as an afterthought, filed under deliverables next to the aspect ratio. It is not a file format question. A brand holding your raws can produce ten more ads out of one shoot, and none of them are covered by the licence you priced. If you hand it over, price it at about 25% on top and make the licence cover the raws explicitly with the same channels and the same end date as the finished video. Otherwise the finished cut expires and the recuts do not. The reasonable middle ground, which brands usually accept, is that they get the raws for one named campaign and the raws are deleted or revert at the end of the term. How it reads in a brief: "Deliverables: 1x 30s edit (9:16), captions burned in, plus all raw files." That last clause is a second deal. What to watch for: Raws handed over with no licence clause of their own are effectively perpetual rights on everything you shot that day, including the takes you rejected. ### Spark Ads Source: https://www.ugcflows.com/glossary/spark-ads Also called: TikTok Spark Ads, spark code. Spark Ads are TikTok's format for putting paid spend behind an existing organic post, either the brand's own or a creator's, using an authorisation code the account holder generates. A Spark Ad keeps the original post's likes, comments and view count and keeps the creator's handle on it, which is why brands want them: the social proof already on the video carries into the ad, and the ad does not read as an ad. The code is generated in TikTok's own settings and has a duration set at the moment it is created, from seven days up to a year. That duration is the negotiation, and it is a separate one from the video's usage rights. For the creator this is whitelisting (https://www.ugcflows.com/glossary/whitelisting) under TikTok's name for it. Meta's equivalent is partnership ads. The pricing logic is identical on both. How it reads in a brief: "Please generate a 365 day Spark code for the deliverable." A year is not a detail. Price it as a year. What to watch for: The code duration is set when you create it and cannot be shortened afterwards, only revoked, so generate the shortest one the deal actually pays for. ### UGC creator Source: https://www.ugcflows.com/glossary/ugc-creator Also called: user generated content creator, content creator for brands. A UGC creator makes advertising videos that look like a real person's own post, for brands to run on their own channels or as paid ads, and is paid for the content rather than for an audience. The difference from influencer marketing is who the video is posted by and what is being bought. An influencer is paid for reach: the brand wants the post to go out to that person's followers. A UGC creator is paid for the asset: the brand posts it themselves, or runs it as an ad, and the creator's follower count is close to irrelevant. That is why this is a job somebody can start with two hundred followers, and why a portfolio matters more than a profile. What a brand is buying is evidence that you can make the video in their brief. The work in practice is a brief, a shoot on a phone, an edit under a minute, captions, and one or two rounds of changes. How to get UGC brand deals with no following (https://www.ugcflows.com/blog/how-to-get-ugc-brand-deals) is the pitch that gets you the first one. What to watch for: Being paid for the asset rather than the audience means the licence is the product, so a UGC creator who does not price usage rights is working for a fraction of the rate. ### UGC portfolio Source: https://www.ugcflows.com/glossary/portfolio Also called: creator portfolio, media kit. A UGC portfolio is one link holding three to five finished vertical videos that plays on a phone with no login, and it is the only evidence a brand gets before deciding to reply. It exists to answer one question: can this person make the video in our brief. Follower counts, a life story and a list of software all sit in the way of that answer. The formats that get booked are a hook plus demo, a talking head, a how to or unboxing, an ad style cut with a call to action, and one in the lane you want to work in. Five in the shapes brands buy beats fifteen mixed ones, because a weak cut costs more than an empty slot. A drive folder that prompts for access is the most common way a pitch quietly ends. UGC portfolio examples (https://www.ugcflows.com/blog/ugc-portfolio) covers the four layouts and what to leave off, and every UGC Flows account comes with a free page at ugcflows.com followed by your handle. What to watch for: A published rate card on the portfolio anchors you before you know what usage rights are being asked for, so put a floor rather than a menu. ### Usage rights Source: https://www.ugcflows.com/glossary/usage-rights Also called: licensing, content licence, media rights. Usage rights are what a brand is allowed to do with a video after you deliver it: which channels it can appear on, whether they can put ad spend behind it, and for how long. Usage rights are the part of a UGC deal that decides most of the price, and they are the part most rate cards never mention. Filming is an afternoon. A licence that lets a brand run your face as a paid ad for twelve months is twelve months of media, and it costs them nothing extra once they have it. A licence has three axes and a brief has to name all three: the channels (their own account, paid ads, their website, retail screens, email), the territory, and the term. Any one of them left open defaults in the brand's favour, because they are the ones holding the file. The practical rule is that organic use on the brand's own account for 30 days is the floor, paid ads for a month is about half again on top, and perpetual rights on any channel are roughly three and a half times the floor. The rate calculator (https://www.ugcflows.com/ugc-rate-calculator) walks the whole ladder. How it reads in a brief: "Brand shall have perpetual, worldwide, royalty-free rights to use the content across all channels." Three words in that sentence cost money: perpetual, worldwide, all channels. What to watch for: A rate quoted with no window attached is a rate quoted for perpetuity, and you will not find out until you see the ad running a year later. ### Whitelisting Source: https://www.ugcflows.com/glossary/whitelisting Also called: allowlisting, creator licensing, partnership ads. Whitelisting is when a brand runs paid ad spend through your social handle rather than their own, so the ad appears in feeds as a post from you. The brand gets an ad that looks like a person rather than a company, which is the whole reason it performs. You get somebody else's marketing budget pushing traffic to a profile with your name on it, and anybody who taps the handle lands on you. Mechanically it is a permission you grant in the platform's own tools: a Spark Ad code on TikTok, partnership ad permissions on Instagram and Facebook. It is separate from handing over the video file, and it can be revoked, which is why it should always carry its own end date. Price it as its own line at around 40% on top of the video rate rather than folding it into the base. It is a different thing being bought: they are renting your account's identity and its history, not a piece of footage. How it reads in a brief: "Creator agrees to provide Spark Ad authorisation for the duration of the campaign." Ask what duration means in days, because the code can outlive the campaign. What to watch for: Granting whitelisting with no expiry means an ad can keep running from your handle long after the deal ended, and every comment on it comes to you. ## How to become a UGC creator in 2026: a step by step guide for beginners Source: https://www.ugcflows.com/blog/how-to-become-a-ugc-creator Published 2026-09-13. Last reviewed 2026-09-13. 2008 words. Category: Getting started. Written for: creators. A UGC creator makes short videos for brands to post. The brand pays for the video, not for your audience, so you can start with no followers. Here is what to film first, how to show it to brands, and what to charge for it. ### Key points - Brands pay for the video, not for your audience. Your follower count is not part of the deal. - A phone, a window and a free editing app are enough to make your first video. - Pick one lane and make three videos in it. Three clean cuts beat fifteen mixed ones. - Your first pitch should carry a finished video, not a paragraph. Almost nobody sends one. - Price the licence, not just the filming. What the brand may do with the video is most of the money. ### What in this is first hand We run the platform brand campaigns get posted on, so we read the briefs, the rates and the reasons creators get turned down. The starting numbers below are the same ones our own rate calculator uses. The mistakes are the ones we watch people make in their first month. ### What a UGC creator actually does UGC stands for user generated content. A UGC creator makes a short video for a brand. The brand posts it on their own account, or runs it as an ad. You get paid for the video. That is the whole job. You are not selling your audience. You are selling a video that looks like a real person made it, because that is what a brand needs and cannot film themselves. This is why it is a job you can start this week. A brand hiring a UGC creator (https://www.ugcflows.com/glossary/ugc-creator) is buying a file and the right to use it. They do not open your profile to count followers. | | Influencer | UGC creator | | --- | --- | --- | | What they buy | Your audience | Your video | | Who posts it | You | The brand | | Followers needed | Yes, that is the product | No | | Paid for | Reach | The file and the licence | ### Do you need followers? No. The video runs from the brand account. Their audience sees it. Yours never does. So the number next to your name changes nothing about whether it works. What a brand checks instead is short. Can you film clearly. Can you talk to a camera. Can you make the video their brief asks for. All three are skills, and all three can be learned in a couple of weeks. There is one case where your account does matter. If the brand wants the ad to run from your handle, that is whitelisting (https://www.ugcflows.com/glossary/whitelisting), and it is a separate thing you charge extra for. > Fix this first: Most first videos fail on sound and light, not on talent. Face a window. Get close to the mic. That is most of it. ### What you need to start The list is shorter than people expect. You do not need a ring light, a mic or a camera to get a first deal. Buy those later, out of money a brand paid you. | What | Use | Cost | | --- | --- | --- | | Camera | The phone in your pocket | $0 | | Light | A window, with your face pointed at it | $0 | | Sound | Indoors, close to the phone, fans off | $0 | | Editing | CapCut, or the editor already on your phone | $0 | | A page to send | One link that plays with no login | $0 | > Do this on day one: Claim the page. We give one away at ugcflows.com followed by your handle. No card, and it is not a trial. Claim the link (https://www.ugcflows.com/portfolio) before you have anything to put on it, so the handle is yours. ### Pick one lane before you film anything A page with three skincare videos gets hired for skincare. A page with one skincare, one gym and one coffee video gets compared on price. Pick a lane you already live in. It shows on camera. If you spend your day on a laptop, tech is the easy answer, and it is also where a lot of the work is right now. Tech UGC (https://www.ugcflows.com/blog/tech-ugc-creator) is its own guide. - Tech: apps, AI tools, study sites, anything that lives on a screen - Skincare and beauty - Fitness and supplements - Food and drink - Home and cleaning ### Make your first video Every UGC video that works has the same five parts. Learn the shape once and you can fill it in for any brand. - Hook: The first two seconds. Say the problem, not the product. "I had 18 tabs open for one essay" beats "this app is amazing". - Problem: One line on why that is annoying. Keep it real. This is the part a viewer nods at. - Product: Show the thing. In your hand, or on your screen. Do not read the feature list out. - Proof: The bit where it worked. The finished notes, the clear skin, the shorter list. - What to do: One line telling them what to press. Short. Then stop. ### Film it and cut it Film in one sitting. Say the whole thing, mess it up, say it again. Keep the take that sounds most like you talking to a friend. Then do three things in the edit. Cut the dead air. Burn in captions. Export it upright. Free apps do all three and nobody can tell which one you used. > Study the shape, do not copy the script: Find the best video a brand has posted and work out why it holds you. Then say your own words. The shapes brands ask for are in the formats guide (https://www.ugcflows.com/blog/ugc-video-formats). ### Turn three videos into a page Once you have three, put them on one link. Not a drive folder that asks for access. That is where most pitches quietly end. Brands open it on a phone, between two other tabs. They watch the first cut and maybe the second. So your best one goes first and the rest can wait. What goes on it, what to leave off, and the four layouts that get booked are all in the portfolio guide (https://www.ugcflows.com/blog/ugc-portfolio). ### Find brands and send the pitch Now you need somebody to send it to. The short version: pick brands you already use, make one video for the one you want most, and put that video in the message. Out of everybody applying, almost nobody sends a video. They send a paragraph about what they would make. A finished cut is the whole advantage, and it costs you one afternoon. - Pick five brands: Ones you use, in your lane. Small and mid sized companies reply far more than famous ones. - Make one video for your top pick: Their product, your face, your words. Two hours of work, and it goes on your page either way. - Send it with the link: Five lines. What of theirs you watched, what you made, the link, your rate, how to reach you. - Follow up once: Four or five days later, one line. A lot of replies come from the follow up and not the first message. ### What to charge when you are new This is where new creators lose the most money, and it is not the headline number they lose it on. A standard 15 to 30 second video starts at $150 on our own numbers. That is for the brand posting it on their own account for 30 days and nothing else. The same video, with ad money behind it and no end date, is worth about three and a half times that. Nothing about the filming changed. What changed is usage rights (https://www.ugcflows.com/glossary/usage-rights), which is what they may do with it and for how long. So never send a price without saying what it covers. A price with no window on it is a price for keeping the video forever. The rate calculator (https://www.ugcflows.com/ugc-rate-calculator) does the maths and hands you the sentence to send back. It is free and it does not ask for an email. The reasoning behind it is in how much to charge for UGC (https://www.ugcflows.com/blog/ugc-rates). ### Your first seven days - Day 1: Pick your lane. Claim your page link. Save five brands you would like to work with. - Day 2: Watch the best video each of those five has posted. Write down why the first two seconds hold you. - Day 3: Film your first video for your top brand. One sitting. Do not aim for perfect. - Day 4: Edit it. Dead air out, captions on, upright. Put it on your page. - Day 5: Send it. Five lines, video linked. Then film the second one. - Day 6: Film and cut the third. Your page now has three videos on it. - Day 7: Send two more pitches. Follow up on the one from day 5. > Where that leaves you: Three videos, one page and three pitches out. That is further than most people get in a month of reading about it. ### What goes wrong, and the fix | What happens | Why | What to do | | --- | --- | --- | | Nobody replies | You sent a paragraph | Send a finished video with it | | They go quiet after the price | The price had no window on it | Say what it covers, and for how long | | One deal, then nothing | The page still has one video on it | Add every cut you make, best one first | | The video looks cheap | It was filmed away from the window | Face the light. Nothing else matters as much | | You never send anything | You are waiting for the page to be finished | Send after the first video. The page fills up while you pitch | ### After the first deal The job changes shape once the money is real. You have to send an invoice, keep the terms straight, and know which video earned what. How to invoice a brand (https://www.ugcflows.com/blog/ugc-invoice-guide) covers the document and the tax side. Once more than two brands are paying you in different ways, tracking it (https://www.ugcflows.com/blog/ugc-deal-tracker) stops being something a spreadsheet can do. You also do not have to work it out alone. Our free community (https://www.ugcflows.com/community) is where creators post what a brand offered them and ask whether it is fair before they reply. ### Questions **Can you be a UGC creator with no followers?** Yes. A brand hiring a UGC creator is buying the video file and the right to use it, not access to your audience. They post it on their own account, so your follower count never enters the deal. The one exception is whitelisting, where the ad runs from your handle, and that is charged as its own line. **How much does a beginner UGC creator make per video?** Our own starting number for a standard 15 to 30 second video is $150, for the brand posting it on their own account for 30 days. What moves that figure most is not experience, it is the licence. Ad rights, a longer window or whitelisting can take the same video past $300, so learn to price the licence and the first number matters much less. **What equipment do you need to start UGC?** A phone, a window and a free editing app. That is the whole list. Sound and light are what make a first video look cheap or clean, and both are free to fix: film indoors facing a window, close to the phone, with fans and music off. Buy a mic later, out of money a brand paid you. **Do you have to show your face to do UGC?** No. A lot of paid work is hands only, screen only or voiceover. Product demos, unboxings and app walkthroughs are often filmed with no face in them at all. Showing your face widens what you can be booked for, so it is worth getting used to, but it is not a requirement to start. **Is UGC saturated in 2026?** There are more creators than there were, and there are also many more brands buying. What is crowded is the bottom: pages with a mixed set of videos, no lane, and a link that asks for access. A creator with three clean videos in one category and a page that opens on a phone is still uncommon, which is most of what this guide is about. **How long does it take to get your first UGC deal?** Nobody can promise a timeline and anybody who does is guessing. What we see is that the creators who land work first are the ones who send a finished video with the pitch instead of a paragraph, and who keep sending after the first few get no reply. Volume plus a real video is the pattern, not a magic number of days. ## UGC video formats: the ones brands ask for, and how to copy one Source: https://www.ugcflows.com/blog/ugc-video-formats Published 2026-09-13. Last reviewed 2026-09-13. 1449 words. Category: Getting started. Written for: creators. Almost every UGC brief names a format. Three of them cover most of the work: talking head, green screen and skit. Here is what each one is, real examples of all three to watch, and the drill for rebuilding one shot for shot so you have something to put on your page. ### Key points - A brief names a format, not just a topic. Your job is to match the shape. - Three formats cover most of the work: talking head, green screen and skit. - Copy a real example shot for shot. It is the fastest way to learn a format. - No product? Film with what you own. The cut is for your page, not for the brand. - Three finished cuts on one link beat any message about what you could make. ### What in this is first hand These are the reference links our own campaign managers send a creator on the day a brand books them. The formats below are the ones our briefs name. The copy drill is the same one we use to work out whether somebody is ready for a deal. ### What a UGC format is A brief gives you two things. The topic is what to talk about. The format is the shape of the video. Two videos about the same app can be two different jobs. One is you talking to camera. One is a small acted scene. The words change. The shots change. The edit changes. So read the format first. It sets how you film, not just what you say. Get it wrong and the brand asks for a re cut, or does not ask you again. > The short version: Most briefs name one of three shapes: talking head, green screen or skit. Learn those three and you can take most of the work on offer. ### The three you will be asked for Each one does a different job for the brand. That is why they pick one. | Format | What it is | Why a brand picks it | | --- | --- | --- | | Talking head | You, to camera, saying it in your own words | It reads as a real person. Best for trust | | Green screen | You in front of a screenshot, a post or a page | It shows proof while you talk over it | | Skit | A short acted scene, often with you as two people | It gets watched to the end. Best for cold traffic | ### Talking head One take. You in frame, saying the thing. No set and no props. The whole job is the first two seconds and your eyes. Look at the lens, not at your own face on the screen. Film it facing a window. Stand close to the phone. Say it like you would say it to a friend. ### Green screen You stand in front of something on screen. A page, a post, a review or a screenshot. The thing behind you is the proof. You are the voice over it. Point at it while you talk. Two kinds get briefed. One you can build yourself out of a screenshot. One is built on art the brand sends you. > No files? Make your own: Take a screen grab of the page, a search result or a real review, and stand in front of that. It works the same way. ### Skit A tiny scene. You often play both people. The joke is usually the problem. It runs on timing. The cut between the two people has to be tight or the whole thing dies. This one is the hardest of the three and the easiest to watch. Brands pay well for it. ### The other formats worth knowing These come up less often. A brief will name one sooner or later, so learn the words now. If your lane is apps and tools, the screen record is the one you will live in. There is a whole guide to tech UGC (https://www.ugcflows.com/blog/tech-ugc-creator). | Format | What it is | | --- | --- | | Voice over | Your hands, the product or a screen, with you talking over the top. No face on camera. | | Screen record | The app or the site on screen while you narrate it. Common for tech and tools. | | Unboxing | The parcel, opened on camera. First look, first touch, first reaction. | | Review | You have used it for a while. The honest verdict, the good bits and the bad ones. | | Testimonial | Short, to camera, one result. It reads like a quote with a face on it. | | Before and after | The state before, then the state after. The cut between them is the whole video. | | Get ready with me | You do your normal routine and the product turns up inside it. | | Day in the life | A run of clips through one day, with the product in a few of them. | | Reaction | You watch another video and react to it, with that video on screen beside you. | | Street interview | You ask strangers one question and cut the answers together. | | Tutorial | Steps. Do this, then this, then this. Good for anything with a setup. | | Point of view | A scene shot as if it is happening to you, with a caption setting it up. | | Listicle | Three things, counted on screen. Quick to film and easy to watch. | | ASMR | Sound and texture lead the cut. Close, slow and quiet. | ### How to copy one, shot for shot Pick one video above. Build it again with your own words and your own product. You are not copying the script. You are copying the shape. - Watch it five times: Once for the feel. Then four times counting things. Cuts, captions, camera moves, where the hands are. - Write the beats: One line per shot. What is on screen and how long it stays there. Most cuts last two or three seconds. - Film your version: Same shots, same order, your words. Shoot more takes than you think you need. - Match the pace: Cut yours as fast as theirs. Add captions the same way. Export it upright. - Play them side by side: Watch both, one after the other. The gap you hear is your list of fixes. Then fix it. > Copy the shape, not the words: Say it in your own voice. A page of copied scripts looks like every other page a brand opens that week. ### You will not have the product. Film it anyway. Most of these you do not own and cannot buy. That is not a reason to skip one. This cut is for your page. It is not going out as an ad. So use what you have. Use a free trial. Record the site on your screen. If the brand is an app, record an app. If it is a drink, use a drink you own. The point is to show that you can hold a shape. > If there is a will there is a way: The creator who finds a way to film it is the creator who gets booked. That is most of what we are looking at. ### Put them on a link, or you do not get read Three finished cuts do nothing on your camera roll. They need one link that plays. A brand opens that link on a phone, between two other tabs. No login. No download. No folder that asks for access first. We give every creator a free page at ugcflows.com with their own name on the end of it. No card, and it is not a trial. Claim yours (https://www.ugcflows.com/portfolio). What goes on it and what to leave off is in the portfolio guide (https://www.ugcflows.com/blog/ugc-portfolio). If you are starting from nothing, read how to become a UGC creator (https://www.ugcflows.com/blog/how-to-become-a-ugc-creator) first. > Why this works: Nearly everybody who applies sends a paragraph about what they would make. A finished cut is the whole advantage. ### The honest bit This is the same pack a brand sends on day one. It is not a test we made up. So if you cannot rebuild one of these, the deal will not go well. Most campaign managers pass on people who need help at this stage. The good news is that copying is a skill and it gets quick. Your third one takes an hour. ### Questions **How many UGC video formats are there?** There is no fixed list. Briefs name about fifteen shapes, and three of them cover most of the work: talking head, green screen and skit. Learn those three first and pick the rest up as they come up. **Should I copy a video word for word?** No. Copy the shape and not the script. Same shots, same order, same pace, but your own words and your own product. A page of copied scripts looks like every other page. **Which format should I film first?** The talking head. It needs nothing but you, a window and a phone, and it is the one most briefs ask for. Film that, then try a green screen, then try a skit. **Can I make these without the product?** Yes. These cuts are for your own page and they are not going out as ads. Use something you own, a free trial, or a screen recording of the website. What a brand wants to see is that you can hold the shape. ## How to become a tech UGC creator: apps, AI tools and SaaS Source: https://www.ugcflows.com/blog/tech-ugc-creator Published 2026-09-13. Last reviewed 2026-09-13. 1688 words. Category: Getting started. Written for: creators. Tech brands hire UGC creators to make videos about apps and AI tools. The product is a screen and not a thing you can hold, so the video is built differently. Here is the shape that gets bought, and what it pays. ### Key points - A tech product lives on a screen, so half of a tech UGC video is a screen recording. - Show the workflow you replaced. The feature list is the brand's own job, not yours. - The hook names a moment the viewer has had, before the app appears at all. - Screen recordings are where tech cuts get rejected. Clear the notifications, slow every tap down. - Software brands run paid ads, so ad rights come up in almost every tech brief. Ask before you quote. ### What in this is first hand The brand campaigns posted on this platform are tech campaigns: apps, AI tools and study software. So the shapes below are the ones those briefs keep asking for, the rejection reasons are the ones we see cuts sent back for, and the rates are the ones our own calculator starts from. ### What tech UGC is Tech UGC is a short video about software. An app, an AI tool, a study site, a note taker. The brand posts it or runs it as an ad, the same as any other UGC. What is different is the product. You cannot pick up a SaaS tool and turn it in the light. It lives on a screen. So the video has to show a screen, and that changes how you build it. It also changes who is hiring. Software companies ship all year and buy ads all year, so this work does not have a season the way a gift brand does. ### The three shapes that get bought | Shape | What it looks like | Best for | | --- | --- | --- | | Talking head plus screen | You to camera, then a cut to the product doing the thing | Most briefs. The safe default | | Screen only with voiceover | No face. Your voice over the recording | AI tools, dev tools, anything dense | | In your day | You at a desk, in the library, on a train, using it for real | Study apps, note takers, productivity | > When the brief does not say: Send the first one. It works most often, and a brand can cut it down into either of the other two. ### Show the workflow, not the features This is the one thing that separates a tech video that gets used from one that gets sent back. A feature list is what the brand already says on their own site, better than you will. Nobody watches an ad to read a website. What people watch is somebody doing a thing they also have to do, faster than they do it. | Do not say | Say instead | | --- | --- | | It has AI summaries | I stopped rewriting my lecture notes. Watch | | It supports 40 file types | I dragged in the pdf my professor sent and it just opened | | It is great for teams | My whole group saw the same doc, so nobody redid the same slide | | Sign up now | It is free to try, link is in the bio | > The rule: Name the thing you used to do, then show the thing you do now. That is the video. ### Writing a hook for software The hook (https://www.ugcflows.com/glossary/hook) is the first two seconds. On a tech video it is harder, because the problem is invisible. Nobody can see that your notes take three hours. So say it out loud, in the first line, before the product exists on screen. | Weak hook | Stronger hook | | --- | --- | | This app changed my life | I had 18 tabs open for one essay | | Check out this AI tool | My code broke at 1am and I could not find it | | The best study app ever | I stopped reading the textbook. Here is what I do now | > Why the right hand column works: Every one of them names a moment. A moment is something the viewer has had. A claim is not. ### Recording a screen a brand can actually use Screen recordings are where tech cuts get rejected, and it is almost never the app's fault. - Clear the screen: Do not disturb on. Close the tabs that are not part of the story. One notification from your mum is a reshoot. - Use a clean account: Real names, real emails and other people's messages in frame are a problem for the brand, not just for you. - Slow every tap down: You know where the button is. The viewer does not. Move, pause, then tap. - Record more than you need: Get the whole flow twice. Trimming is free. Filming it again is not. - Zoom in when you edit: A laptop screen shrunk into an upright frame is unreadable. Push in on the part that matters. > Read the brief before you record: Some brands want a set plan, a demo login or a specific account state. Ask if it does not say, because finding out afterwards means filming it again. ### Make the scene real The strongest tech videos are filmed where the problem happens. The library at 11pm. The desk with two monitors. The kitchen table with a laptop and cold coffee on it. It costs nothing, and it is the difference between a video that reads as an ad and one that reads as a person. A study tool filmed on a made bed in bright daylight does not look like studying. ### What a tech brand checks before they hire you - Can you be understood. Clear audio beats a nice camera every time - Can you explain one thing in one sentence without reading it - Can you record a screen with nothing messy on it - Do you hit the date. A software launch has a date and it does not move - Do you follow the brief (https://www.ugcflows.com/glossary/brief). Tech briefs carry claims that have been approved and claims that have not > None of it is about your following: Every line above is about whether the video will be usable on the day they need it. That is the only question being asked. ### A tech portfolio looks different Put a screen recording on it. A page of talking head clips does not answer the one question a software brand has, which is whether you can make their product readable on camera. Three cuts is enough: one talking head plus screen, one screen only with voiceover, and one in your day. The four layouts and what to leave off are in the portfolio guide (https://www.ugcflows.com/blog/ugc-portfolio). If you have not made a first video at all yet, start with how to become a UGC creator (https://www.ugcflows.com/blog/how-to-become-a-ugc-creator) and come back to this. ### Where the tech brands are Small and mid sized software companies reply. Big ones have agencies in the way. Look at the tools already on your phone and your laptop, because you can talk about those without pretending. Send a video with the pitch. In tech that matters more, not less: the brand is trying to work out whether you can make their product legible, and no paragraph answers that. The full pitch is in how to get UGC brand deals (https://www.ugcflows.com/blog/how-to-get-ugc-brand-deals). ### What tech UGC pays A standard 15 to 30 second video starts at $150 on our own numbers, for the brand posting it on their own account for 30 days. A talking head over 30 seconds starts higher. Software brands run paid ads more than most, so ad rights are in nearly every tech brief. That is the line that moves the total. Ads for a year is about three times the organic price for the same file, and perpetual is more again. Work it out on the rate calculator (https://www.ugcflows.com/ugc-rate-calculator) before you reply. It is free, it takes no email, and it gives you the sentence to send. Every line of the reasoning is in how much to charge for UGC (https://www.ugcflows.com/blog/ugc-rates). > Ask about ad spend before you quote: Tech brands almost always want paid usage. Asking which channels and for how long, before you name a number, is the whole difference between a fair price and a cheap one. ### Mistakes that get a tech cut sent back | Mistake | Why it fails | | --- | --- | | Reading the feature list | Their own site already says it, better | | A cluttered screen recording | Notifications and stray tabs make it unusable | | Claiming something the brief did not | Software claims get checked. Stay inside the brief | | Talking fast over the demo | Nobody can follow a tap they did not see | | No captions | Most of it is watched with the sound off | | A study app filmed in a tidy bright bedroom | The scene does not match the problem | ### Questions **Do you need to be technical to make tech UGC?** No. You need to be able to use the product like a normal person and say what changed. Most tech briefs want the customer's point of view rather than an expert's, and a video that sounds like a developer usually performs worse than one that sounds like somebody who was stuck an hour ago. Twenty minutes with the app is enough. **Can you make tech UGC without showing your face?** Yes, and it is one of the easier lanes to do faceless. A screen recording with a voiceover is a shape software brands buy often, especially for dense tools where the screen is the story. Your voice still has to be clear, so record the audio close to the mic and in a quiet room. **How do you record your screen for a UGC video?** Use the recorder already built into your phone or laptop, with do not disturb on and every tab you do not need closed. Move slowly and pause before each tap. Record the whole flow twice so you can trim, and zoom in when you edit, because a full screen shrunk into an upright frame is unreadable. **Do AI companies hire UGC creators?** Yes, and they are among the most active buyers right now, because a new AI tool has to show what it does before anybody understands why they would want it. The brief is usually the same shape as any other software brief: a real problem, the tool doing the thing, then the result. Expect ad rights to be part of it. **How long should a tech UGC video be?** Most briefs ask for 15 to 30 seconds, and that is enough for a hook, one workflow and a result. Anything covering more than one feature usually wants 45 to 60 seconds, and that is a different rate. Check the brief before you plan the shots, because cutting a 60 second idea down to 20 loses the demo. ## How much to charge for UGC: the flat fee, the bonus and the usage rights Source: https://www.ugcflows.com/blog/ugc-rates Published 2026-09-06. Last reviewed 2026-09-06. 1191 words. Category: Rates and money. Written for: creators. Price a UGC deal as three numbers: a flat fee per finished video, a performance bonus with a written window, and a separate line for usage rights. Most creators quote the first and give the other two away. ### Key points - A UGC deal is a flat fee plus a bonus, and the bonus comes in four shapes: CPM, per video, milestone, or none. - The window on the bonus (forever, first N days, or fixed dates) changes the payout more than the rate does. - Ask whether the bonus replaces the base fee or adds to it. Most rate sheets mean replace. - The flat fee is per cut, not per post. One cut on four platforms is one fee; the CPM is usually counted per platform. - Usage rights are their own line on every third-party rate card, and the line most creators forget to write. ### What in this is first hand The bonus shapes, the windows and the per-cut rule below are read off the rate sheets brands write into deals tracked on UGC Flows, where every rule has to be typed in as a number before the app can count a view against it. ### What does a UGC deal actually pay? Every brand deal we see is written as a flat fee plus a bonus, and the bonus rules are different for every brand. The flat fee is per video, per month as a retainer, or a one-off for the whole batch. The bonus is where the money is, and it is the number most creators never negotiate because they do not know the shapes it comes in. If you want the figure before the reasoning, the rate calculator (https://www.ugcflows.com/ugc-rate-calculator) prices one deal in about a minute and asks for nothing. On one creator's tracker right now: a $1 CPM on one brand, a $5 CPM on another, a one-off payment at 100,000 views on a third, and nothing at all on a fourth. Same creator, same month, four different ways of being paid. That is normal, and it is why a rate card with one number on it is not a rate card. Holding four of those at once is its own problem, and how to track UGC brand deals (https://www.ugcflows.com/blog/ugc-deal-tracker) is the post about it. ### The four bonus shapes brands write Two more lines usually sit under the shape. A minimum: earn nothing under N views on that video. A cap: earn no more than $X on that video. Ask for both numbers before you agree, because a $5 CPM with a $50 cap is a $50 bonus. | Shape | How it pays | What a real rate sheet says | | --- | --- | --- | | CPM | views divided by 1,000, times a rate | $1 per 1,000 views on TikTok, $5 per 1,000 on YouTube | | Per video | a fixed amount once per video posted inside the window | $30 a video for the first 30 days | | Milestone | the highest tier reached. Tiers do not stack | $150 at 50,000 views, $500 at 250,000 | | None | the flat fee is the whole deal | $25 a video, no bonus | ### The window is the part that decides the money A bonus rule only counts views inside its window, and there are three kinds. Which one the brand means changes the payout by a lot, so get it in writing. - Forever: every view the video ever gets. Rare, and expensive for the brand, so read the cap closely. - First N days of the video's life: only views in the first 7, 14 or 30 days after posting. The most common shape. - Fixed dates: only views that accrue between a start date and an end date. An older video joining a campaign brings none of its back catalogue, because the views it had at the start date are subtracted. ### Does the bonus replace the base fee or sit on top of it? Most rate sheets are written as an either/or: "$30 a video, or $150 at 50k." That means the milestone replaces the base fee on the video that hit it. Some brands mean the opposite, $30 plus $150. The two readings differ by $30 a video across the whole batch, so ask the question in those words: replace, or add? > The one question to ask before you sign: "When a video hits the bonus, do I still get the $30 for it?" A yes is add. A no is replace. Write the answer into the deal, because it is the difference between two payouts that both look right on paper. ### One cut, four platforms, one fee A brand deal usually means new accounts on TikTok, Instagram, YouTube and Facebook, and the same cut goes out on all four. The flat fee is paid once per cut, not once per post. The bonus is the opposite: a CPM is usually counted per platform, so the same cut earns on each account's own views. A creator on our tracker read $120 for a $30 cut because a tool counted posts instead of cuts. Say "per cut" or "per post" out loud when you quote, and write it on the invoice (https://www.ugcflows.com/blog/ugc-invoice-guide) the same way. ### What third-party rate cards say a video is worth For the flat fee itself we do not publish a band, because the deals we track are private. One widely circulated 2026 rate card puts a single organic-use video at $75 to $120 for a new creator and $150 to $250 for an established one, adds $75 to $150 for 30 days of paid-ads usage and $150 to $300 for 90 days, and prices category exclusivity at 25% to 50% on top. Treat those as one publisher's numbers, not a market price, and notice that usage rights are a separate line on every one of them. If you do not have a deal to price yet, start with how to get UGC brand deals with no following (https://www.ugcflows.com/blog/how-to-get-ugc-brand-deals). ### How to write the quote Five lines, in this order. If you have not made a first video yet, how to become a UGC creator (https://www.ugcflows.com/blog/how-to-become-a-ugc-creator) is the week before this one, and tech UGC (https://www.ugcflows.com/blog/tech-ugc-creator) is the lane where ad rights come up most. - The flat fee: Per cut, per month, or for the batch. Say which. - The bonus: The shape, the rate, the window, the minimum and the cap, all as numbers. - Usage rights: By channel and by length of time. Organic only, or paid ads, and for how many days. - Payment terms: Net 15 or net 30, and which day of the month the views are read on. - Replace or add: Whether the bonus replaces the base fee on the video that earned it, or adds to it. ### Questions **How much should a beginner UGC creator charge per video?** Third-party rate cards in 2026 put a single organic-use video from a new creator at roughly $75 to $120, before usage rights. The number that matters more is the bonus and the window on it, which is where a deal's real money sits. **What is a CPM bonus in a UGC deal?** A CPM bonus pays a rate per 1,000 views the video gets inside a window. A $1 CPM on a video with 200,000 counted views is $200. The window, the minimum and the cap decide how many of those views count. **Should I charge separately for usage rights?** Yes. Usage rights are a separate line on every rate card we have seen, priced by channel (organic or paid ads) and by term (30, 90 or 180 days). A video priced without them is a video whose ads usage was given away. ### Sources cited - DansUGC, UGC creator rate card 2026 (third-party rate bands quoted below): https://dansugc.com/blog/ugc-creator-rate-card-2026 ## How to get UGC brand deals with no following Source: https://www.ugcflows.com/blog/how-to-get-ugc-brand-deals Published 2026-09-06. Last reviewed 2026-09-06. 1068 words. Category: Getting deals. Written for: creators. Brands that buy UGC are buying the video, not your audience. You need three to five finished vertical cuts on one link, a rate you can say out loud, and a way to reach the person who books creators. Followers are not on the list. ### Key points - A campaign manager opens your link to answer one question: can this person make the video in the brief? - Three to five finished vertical cuts on one link that plays without a login is the whole portfolio. - Deals come through three doors: inbound from a page that ranks for your name, outbound pitches, and campaigns where the brand already wrote the rate. - A pitch that works is five lines and a link. No attachments. - If you post the video on your own account for pay, the FTC says disclose it in the video itself. ### What in this is first hand The campaign section of this post describes how brands post work on UGC Flows: the rate and the brief are set by the brand before a creator applies, which is the thing we can say because we built the form they fill in. ### Who is buying, and what are they looking at? UGC is video a brand runs on its own accounts and in its own ads. The person booking it is a campaign manager with a brief, a budget and a deadline, and they open your link to answer one question: can this person make the video in the brief? Your follower count does not appear in that question, which is why creators with 300 followers get booked and creators with 30,000 get ignored. What does appear: whether your cuts look like the ads the brand already runs, whether the first second holds, and whether you can be reached and paid without a chase. > Why brands keep buying it: Emplifi's Q1 2026 benchmark across tens of thousands of US brand accounts put conversions on pages carrying UGC at 6.73 times those without it. Be careful with the other number you will see everywhere, "4x higher click-through": a 2026 review traced it across dozens of vendor blogs and found no named study behind it. The demand is real; the folklore is not, and a creator who quotes only the sourced figure sounds like somebody who reads. ### What do you need before you pitch? - Three to five finished vertical videos in formats brands buy: a hook plus demo, a talking head, a testimonial, an unboxing or how-to, and one ad-style cut with a call to action. What a portfolio that converts looks like (https://www.ugcflows.com/blog/ugc-portfolio) is its own post, and if you have not filmed any of them yet, start at how to become a UGC creator (https://www.ugcflows.com/blog/how-to-become-a-ugc-creator). - One link that plays on a phone with no login. A drive folder that asks for access is a pitch that ends there. - A rate you can say in one sentence, with the bonus and the usage rights as separate lines. If you have not priced usage rights, you will give them away; how much to charge for UGC (https://www.ugcflows.com/blog/ugc-rates) is the three numbers and the rate calculator (https://www.ugcflows.com/ugc-rate-calculator) does the arithmetic for you. - An email address and a way to be paid. Boring, and the thing that decides whether the second deal happens. ### Where do the deals come from? Three doors, and the working creators use all three. Inbound, from a portfolio page that ranks for your name and a bio that says UGC creator and what you shoot. Outbound, from short pitches to brands whose ads you have already studied. And campaigns, where the brand has already written the brief and the rate and is waiting for applicants. On UGC Flows the campaigns come to you with the rate set. A brand posts the brief and the pay before a creator applies, so you are never guessing what it is worth, and when a brand picks you the deal lands in your tracker (https://www.ugcflows.com/blog/ugc-deal-tracker) with its bonus rules already written in. That is on the Pro plan, and the guarantee on it is written in the same words on the pricing page: Guaranteed deal placement on Business and Pro. ### What does a pitch that works look like? - Name the ad you watched: One line on which of their ads you studied, by name. It proves you did the work. - Say what you would make: One line, in their format. A hook plus demo for a skincare brand, a talking head for an app. - The link: One url that plays on a phone with no login. - The rate: One video, and the usage rights that come with it, as two numbers. - How to reach you: An email. Five lines total, no attachments. ### What should you say no to? - Payment in exposure or product only, once you have a portfolio. One free test cut is a normal ask; a second is a discount you did not agree to. - A deal with no written window on the bonus and no term on the usage rights. Both are money, and both are decided by the words on the page. - A brief that arrives after the price. The price is for the brief; a brief that grows is a price that should grow with it. ### Do you have to disclose a paid post? If the brand runs the video on its own channels, it is the brand's ad and the disclosure is the brand's problem. If you post it on your own account for pay or for product, the FTC's guidance is that you disclose the relationship clearly and in the video itself, not only in the caption, with plain words like ad or sponsored rather than abbreviations. That is a summary of the FTC's own pages linked below, not legal advice, and the pages are short enough to read in full. ### Questions **Do you need followers to get UGC deals?** No. UGC runs on the brand's own accounts and ads, so the brand is buying the video, not your reach. Creators with a few hundred followers get booked on the strength of three to five good cuts. **How do I find brands that pay for UGC?** Three ways: a portfolio page that ranks for your name, short pitches to brands whose ads you have studied, and campaign boards where the brand has already posted the brief and the rate. On UGC Flows the campaigns are on the Pro plan and the rate is set before you apply. **Should I do a free test video?** One is a normal ask from a brand deciding between creators. A second free cut is a discount you did not agree to, and a brand that asks for it is telling you what the paid work will be like. ### Sources cited - Emplifi, UGC drives 6.7x higher conversions in Q1 2026 (press release, April 2026): https://emplifi.io/press/ugc-drives-6-7x-higher-conversions-in-q1-2026/ - Whatmore, UGC vs static ads: CTR and conversion data compared (August 2026): https://www.whatmore.ai/blog/ugc-vs-static-ads-ctr-conversion-data-compared/ - FTC, Disclosures 101 for social media influencers: https://www.ftc.gov/business-guidance/resources/disclosures-101-social-media-influencers - FTC, The Endorsement Guides: what people are asking: https://www.ftc.gov/business-guidance/resources/ftcs-endorsement-guides-what-people-are-asking ## How to invoice a brand for UGC, and what to do about the taxes Source: https://www.ugcflows.com/blog/ugc-invoice-guide Published 2026-09-06. Last reviewed 2026-09-06. 1001 words. Category: Rates and money. Written for: creators. A UGC invoice is one line for the flat fee, one line per bonus rule carrying the view count and the date it was read, the usage rights, the total and the due date. Freeze the numbers on it; correct them on the next invoice, never by reissuing this one. ### Key points - Eight things go on every invoice, in the same order every time, so the brand's finance team can pay it without a question. - The bonus line carries the view count and the date it was read. A view count is a reading, not a fact. - Never reissue a sent invoice. A correction is an adjustment line on the next one. - Ask for net 15. Accept net 30 on retainers. Net 60 only with a deposit. - UGC income is self-employment income in the US: file at $400 of net earnings, pay estimated tax quarterly, and owe it whether or not a 1099 arrives. ### What in this is first hand The freeze rule is how the payout ledger on UGC Flows works: a payout row stores its numbers as text and is never recomputed, and a later scrape that backfills a missing day becomes an adjustment on a new row rather than a change to a bill already sent. ### What goes on a UGC invoice? The same eight things every time, in the same order, so the brand's finance team can pay it without a question. The two that UGC adds to an ordinary freelance invoice are the bonus line and the date on it. The rules that produce that line are in how much to charge for UGC (https://www.ugcflows.com/blog/ugc-rates). - Your name or business name, address and email, and the brand's legal name and billing contact. - An invoice number and the invoice date. Number them in sequence and never reuse one. - The base line: how many cuts were delivered in the period, times the flat fee. A cut that went out on four platforms is one cut. - One bonus line per rule: the rule in words ("$1 per 1,000 views, first 30 days, TikTok"), the views counted, the date they were read, and the amount. - Usage rights, if they were priced separately, as their own line with the term. - The total, the due date written as a date and not only as "net 30", and how to pay you. ### Why the bonus line carries a date A view count is a reading, not a fact: the same video says a different number tomorrow. So the bonus line says what the count was and when you read it, and that reading is what the brand is paying for. If a platform later reports more views inside the window, the difference goes on the next invoice as an adjustment line that names the earlier invoice number. > The freeze rule: Once an invoice is sent, its numbers are frozen. Reissuing it, or quietly changing its total, is how a brand's finance team stops trusting your numbers. A correction is a new line on the next invoice that names the old one. ### Which payment terms should you ask for? For a deal with a bonus, agree the day the views are read on. A monthly invoice that reads views on the 1st and is due net 15 is a bill the brand can check on its own dashboard, which is what gets it paid on time. | Terms | What it means | When to accept it | | --- | --- | --- | | On delivery | paid when the cut is approved | small one-off deals, first deal with a brand | | Net 15 | paid 15 days after the invoice date | the default to ask for | | Net 30 | paid 30 days after the invoice date | retainers and larger brands, with the bonus period aligned to the month | | Net 60 or longer | two months of float on your money | only with a deposit up front | ### What about taxes? In the US, UGC income is self-employment income. The IRS pages linked below say that if you have net earnings of $400 or more from self-employment you must file a return, that you generally pay estimated tax four times a year (April 15, June 15, September 15 and January 15), and that you owe tax on the income whether or not a brand sends you a 1099 form. Underpaying across the year draws a penalty even if you end up with a refund. A common rule of thumb is to set aside a fixed share of every payment the day it lands, in an account you do not spend from. The share depends on your state and your other income. That is a rule of thumb and not tax advice; the IRS worksheet on Form 1040-ES is the actual calculation, and an accountant who does creator returns is worth one invoice a year. ### How UGC Flows handles it Every deal on the tracker (https://www.ugcflows.com/blog/ugc-deal-tracker) carries its pay cycle and net terms, the app counts the views inside each rule's window, and a payout freezes the numbers as text the day it is logged. The taxes page shows the year by month and by brand on two bases, earned and paid, and exports both as CSV, with a set-aside rate you choose. It is on both plans, from $199 a month. Reading this before the first invoice rather than after it? How to become a UGC creator (https://www.ugcflows.com/blog/how-to-become-a-ugc-creator) is the part that comes first, and the rate calculator (https://www.ugcflows.com/ugc-rate-calculator) is what decides the number on the line. ### Questions **How do I invoice for a view bonus that is still growing?** Read the count on the agreed day, write the count and the date on the bonus line, and bill that. If the window is still open next month, the difference goes on the next invoice as an adjustment line that names this one. **Do I need to pay quarterly taxes on UGC income?** In the US, generally yes once you expect to owe tax on it. The IRS says self-employed people pay estimated tax four times a year, on April 15, June 15, September 15 and January 15, and that a return is required at $400 of net self-employment earnings. **What if the brand never sends a 1099?** You owe tax on the income anyway. The IRS is explicit that gig income is taxable whether or not an information form arrives, so keep your own record of every payment, which is what the paid side of a deal tracker is for. ### Sources cited - IRS, Estimated taxes: https://www.irs.gov/businesses/small-businesses-self-employed/estimated-taxes - IRS, Manage taxes for your gig work: https://www.irs.gov/businesses/small-businesses-self-employed/manage-taxes-for-your-gig-work - IRS, Self-employed individuals tax center: https://www.irs.gov/businesses/small-businesses-self-employed/self-employed-individuals-tax-center ## UGC portfolio examples: the four shapes that get booked, and how to build yours Source: https://www.ugcflows.com/blog/ugc-portfolio Published 2026-09-06. Last reviewed 2026-09-07. 2425 words. Category: Portfolio. Written for: creators. A UGC portfolio is three to five finished vertical cuts on one link that plays on a phone with no login, laid out in one of four shapes: name first, reel first, media kit, or editorial. Follower counts and a full rate card do not belong on it. ### Key points - A campaign manager opens a portfolio on a phone, between two other tabs, and gives it the first cut and maybe the second. - Five cuts in the formats brands buy beat fifteen mixed ones. A weak cut costs more than an empty slot. - The layout is a real decision, not decoration: reel first when the reel is the pitch, a media kit when you send it in DMs, editorial when you are selling a niche. - One link that plays without a login. A drive folder that asks for access is where most pitches end. - Vertical, captioned, under 45 seconds, newest on top, and refreshed every four to eight weeks. ### What in this is first hand The portfolio page described here is the one every UGC Flows member gets free at ugcflows.com/. We built the maker, we drew the four layouts below off reading a lot of real creator portfolios, and we see which sections campaign managers on the platform actually open. The order of this article is the order they scroll. ### What is a brand actually looking for when they open it? One thing: can you make the video in their brief. A campaign manager opens a portfolio on a phone, between two other tabs, and gives it the first cut and maybe the second. Everything on the page either answers that question or is in the way. The brand is not guessing about whether creator video works. Emplifi's Q1 2026 benchmark across tens of thousands of US brand accounts put conversions on pages carrying it at 6.73 times those without. What they are guessing about is you, and the portfolio is the only evidence they get before they reply. Which is why almost every mistake on a UGC portfolio is the same mistake: putting something on the page that is about you rather than about the work. A follower count, a long life story, a list of the software you own. None of it answers the question the page was opened to answer. ### Which five videos should be on it? Vertical, under 45 seconds each, captions on, newest at the top. Five strong cuts beat fifteen mixed ones, and a weak cut costs more than the empty slot would, because it is the one a manager will assume is representative. A 2026 guide written for the brands doing the hiring says five to ten samples, each labelled with its format and platform, which is the same shape read from the other side of the table. Spec work counts. A cut you made for a product you bought yourself is a real sample as long as you say so under it. Nobody hiring for UGC has ever refused a good video for being unpaid; they refuse videos they cannot tell the point of. If you do not know what to film, the formats guide (https://www.ugcflows.com/blog/ugc-video-formats) has real examples of each shape to rebuild. - A hook plus demo: The product in use, with the first second doing the work. This is the cut most briefs ask for, so it goes first. - A talking head: You, to camera, saying why. Brands buy this for testimonial-style ads and they cannot tell from a demo whether you can hold a frame. - A how-to or unboxing: The product from box to use, cut tight. It shows you can carry a sequence rather than land one line. - An ad-style cut: With an on-screen call to action, so they can see you can close and not only open. - One in the lane you want: Skincare, fitness, apps, food, home. A portfolio with a lane gets booked into that lane, and a portfolio with no lane gets compared on price. ### The four shapes a UGC portfolio comes in This is the decision most people skip, and it is the one that changes whether the page works. The same five clips, the same bio and the same brands can be arranged four ways, and each way makes a different argument. Pick the argument you can actually win. - Classic is the default for a reason. Name, then work, then who you have worked with, then how to reach you is the order almost every hiring person reads in, and nothing about it needs explaining. - Reel first is the one that converts hardest when your top three cuts are genuinely good, and the one that hurts most when they are not, because there is nothing above them to set expectations. - A media kit is a document, not a poster. It fits on about a screen and a half, and the result under each clip is the loudest thing on it. This is the one to send when a brand asks for your rates and portfolio in a DM. - Editorial gives every clip its own paragraph, which is what you want when the answer to 'why did this work' is more interesting than the view count. It is the wrong choice if you have nothing to say about the cuts. | Shape | What the visitor sees first | Pick it when | | --- | --- | --- | | Classic | your name, a line about you, then the clips | you are early, or you want the safe one that never reads wrong | | Reel first | a strip with your name, then the clips full width | the work is the pitch and you would rather it opened than be described | | Media kit | your photo, one line, the numbers, the brands, then the clips | you send the link in DMs and pitches, where it has to survive one screen | | Editorial | a full width cover with your name over it, then each clip beside what it was for | you are selling a niche, and the reason a cut worked is the point | > One shape, not four: Do not build all four and ask people which they like. Pick the one that matches how the link actually gets sent, and spend the time you saved on a better third clip. ### What the format data says Two numbers from vendor benchmarks are worth knowing, with the caveat that they are one vendor's cohort of stores and not an independent study. On product pages, 9:16 vertical video reached a median watch-through of 38% against 24% for 16:9 horizontal; and auto-generated captions lifted completion by 14% where video autoplays muted. Both point the same way: shoot vertical, caption everything, and assume the sound is off. | Choice | Do this | Because | | --- | --- | --- | | Aspect ratio | 9:16 vertical | it is what the brand will run, and it holds attention longer on a phone | | Captions | always on, burned in | most viewing is muted, and a caption is the hook when the sound is off | | Length | under 45 seconds | a manager watches the first cut and maybe the second | | Order | newest first | the top cut is the one that gets watched | | Numbers | one per clip, or none | a view count under a cut answers 'does their stuff perform' with no clicks | ### What else goes on the page The clips are most of it, and they are not all of it. Four things earn their space, and everything else is costing you the scroll it takes to get past. - A headline that says what you shoot. Not 'content creator'. 'UGC for skincare and wellness brands' tells a manager in four words whether to keep reading. - A short about, in your own voice. Brands are about to hand you their product and their name, so they care whether you are a fit as a person, not only as a camera operator. Two or three sentences. - Your contact, in an obvious place. It is the smallest thing on the list and the one that loses the most deals: a page they love with no email on it is a page they close. - Where you are, and roughly how old you are. Managers filter on both constantly, for shipping and for whether you match the audience, and they will not write to ask. - The brands you have worked with, as a row of marks. Even two is worth drawing, because it is the difference between somebody who has done this and somebody who says they can. ### Should your rates be on it? This is the one place we disagree with most of the advice out there. It is common practice on UGC portfolios to publish a package list, and the reason it is common is honest: it filters out brands with no budget before they waste a week of your time. It also anchors you at your own number before you know what is being asked for. Usage rights are the whole game here: the same three videos are worth one price organic-only for 30 days and several times that as paid ads in perpetuity, and a portfolio page cannot know which one is being priced. So a published package gets negotiated down from, and never up to. If you want the filtering, put a floor and not a menu. One line saying what the smallest thing you take on costs does the same filtering and costs you nothing, because it is a starting point by construction. Keep the real number for the conversation, where you can price the actual ask, and work it out on the rate calculator (https://www.ugcflows.com/ugc-rate-calculator) before you send it. > A floor, not a rate card: 'Packages start at $X for three videos, organic use' filters the same brands out and leaves every real number still to be agreed. ### What to leave off - Follower counts. The brand is buying the video, and a small number on the page argues against you for no reason. If a number belongs anywhere it is under a clip, as what that clip did. - Anything that needs a download, a password, or a desktop. Assume it is being opened on a phone in a taxi. - Cuts older than a year that no longer look like what you make now. The oldest cut on the page is what they will assume you would deliver. - A wall of every video you have made. Fifteen average clips is not more impressive than five good ones, it is a longer way of saying the same thing about your average. - Stock footage, other people's ads, and anything you cannot say you made. > Refresh it on a schedule: Every four to eight weeks, put the newest cut at the top and take the weakest one off. A portfolio that has not changed in six months tells a manager exactly that. ### Build one free, in about ten minutes The page described above is the one every UGC Flows member gets free (https://www.ugcflows.com/portfolio), at ugcflows.com followed by your handle. It is free with no card and it is not a trial: the maker, all four layouts and the live link are on the free tier permanently. - Claim your link: Pick the handle. It becomes ugcflows.com/yourhandle and it never changes after that, so pick the one you already hand out. - Pick a shape: Four templates, drawn as pictures of the page they make rather than named after a mood. Picking one also sets a font and a background that were drawn with it, and you can override both. - Add three to five cuts: Upload the file, or paste a TikTok, Reel or YouTube link and it plays in place. Put the brand under each one and the one number worth saying beside it. - Say who you are, in two lines: A headline, a short about, your location and your email. The meter on the page tells you what is still missing and refuses to publish without a name and a contact. - Publish, and send the link: It goes live at your address with its own title and description, so it is also the page that ranks for your name. ### Where the deals come from once the page exists A portfolio does not get you booked on its own; it closes people who were already deciding. What gets you in front of them is pitching, and being in the rooms where briefs get posted before they are public. That is the other free half of this: the community (https://www.ugcflows.com/community) is where brands and campaign managers post what they are looking for, and where you can ask what a job is worth before you reply to it. Both doors cost nothing and neither is a trial. How to get UGC brand deals with no following (https://www.ugcflows.com/blog/how-to-get-ugc-brand-deals) is the pitch itself, five lines long, and how to become a UGC creator (https://www.ugcflows.com/blog/how-to-become-a-ugc-creator) is the whole first week if you have not filmed anything yet. ### Questions **How many videos should a UGC portfolio have?** Three to five finished cuts, in the formats brands buy: a hook plus demo, a talking head, a how-to or unboxing, an ad-style cut with a call to action, and one in the niche you want more of. Guides written for the hiring side say five to ten; the smaller number is right when every cut is strong, because the weakest one on the page is the one that gets treated as your average. **Do I need a website for a UGC portfolio?** You need one link that plays on a phone with no login. A page built for it is best; a drive folder that prompts for access is the most common way a pitch quietly ends. UGC Flows members get a page at ugcflows.com followed by their handle for free, with no card and no trial. **What should a UGC portfolio look like?** Pick one of four shapes and commit to it. Classic puts your name first and the work under it. Reel first opens on the clips at full width. A media kit is one dense screen with the numbers up front, for sending in DMs. Editorial gives every clip its own paragraph, for selling a niche. Same content, four different arguments, and the right one depends on how the link actually gets sent. **Should I put my rates on my portfolio?** Put a floor, not a rate card. A published package list filters out brands with no budget, which is real, but it also anchors you before you know what usage rights are being asked for, and the same three videos are worth several times more as paid ads in perpetuity than organic for 30 days. One line saying where packages start does the filtering and leaves the real number for the conversation. **Can I make a UGC portfolio with no brand deals yet?** Yes, and almost everybody starts there. Shoot spec work: pick products you already own, make the cut you would have made if you had been hired, and label it as spec under the clip. Nobody hiring for creator video has refused a good sample for being unpaid. What they refuse is a page where they cannot tell what they are looking at. ### Sources cited - Copyfolio, 15 UGC portfolio examples and how to create yours easily (updated May 2026): https://blog.copyfol.io/ugc-portfolio-examples - Tomoson, How to build a UGC creator portfolio that converts (May 2026): https://tomoson.com/ugc-creator-portfolio/ - Idukki, UGC statistics 2026: video watch-through and caption benchmarks (vendor cohort data): https://idukki.io/resources/ugc-statistics - Emplifi, UGC drives 6.7x higher conversions in Q1 2026 (press release, April 2026): https://emplifi.io/press/ugc-drives-6-7x-higher-conversions-in-q1-2026/ ## How to track UGC brand deals when every brand pays differently Source: https://www.ugcflows.com/blog/ugc-deal-tracker Published 2026-09-06. Last reviewed 2026-09-06. 923 words. Category: Operations. Written for: creators. Track each deal as five things: the brand, the flat fee and its terms, every bonus rule with its window, one account per platform, and one view reading per video per day. A spreadsheet holds the first three and breaks on the last two. ### Key points - A deal is five things, not one row: brand, fee and terms, bonus rules with windows, one account per platform, and a daily view reading per video. - A bonus window is views at the end minus views at the start. One latest number cannot compute that. - A day with no reading is not a day that earned nothing. Never subtract against a zero nobody measured. - Earned is what the rules say is owed today. Paid is what landed. Keep both and freeze a payout the day it is logged. - The spreadsheet breaks at the second brand, and by the third the bonus is being estimated rather than counted. ### What in this is first hand This is the data model UGC Flows runs on, written out: brands, deals, accounts, bonus rules, videos, a daily stats row per video and frozen payouts. Every rule in it exists because a creator's spreadsheet got a number wrong in a way we then had to explain. ### Why does the spreadsheet break at two brands? One brand deal is a flat fee plus a bonus plus a set of accounts, and none of those is a single cell. A $1 CPM on the first 30 days of each video needs the view count on the day the video was posted and the count 30 days later, per video, per platform. A milestone at 100,000 views needs the highest tier reached, once, and must not pay twice. A campaign with fixed dates needs the views a video had before the campaign started subtracted out. By the second brand the sheet has three tabs and a formula nobody trusts, and by the third the bonus is being estimated rather than counted. The four bonus shapes themselves are in how much to charge for UGC (https://www.ugcflows.com/blog/ugc-rates). ### What are the five things to track? | Thing | What it holds | Why it is its own row | | --- | --- | --- | | Brand | who is paying | two deals with one brand are one line on your 1099 | | Deal | flat fee, pay cycle, net terms, minimum views for the base fee | a brand's second campaign is a second deal with different rules | | Bonus rule | shape, rate, window, minimum, cap, which platforms | a deal can hold several, and each pays on its own window | | Account | one per platform per deal | brands hand you new accounts, and views are counted per account | | Video | the cut, the post on each platform, the date posted | one cut goes out on four platforms for one fee | ### Why one view reading per day, not the latest number? A bonus window is views at the end of the window minus views at the start. You cannot compute that from one number. If you only keep the latest count, an older video that joins a fixed-date campaign brings its whole back catalogue into the bonus, and a 30-day rule keeps paying forever. So the tracker keeps one row per video per day, and the window arithmetic reads the last reading on or before each edge. > The zero that must never be trusted: A day with no reading is not a day that earned nothing. Subtract against a day nobody measured and the deal's whole lifetime prints under a 30-day label. A tracker has to know the difference between read and earned nothing, and never read. ### Owed is not paid Earned is what the rules say the brand owes as of today. Paid is what landed. Keep both, and freeze a payout the day it is logged: the numbers on it are text, never recomputed, and a correction is a new adjustment line rather than a change to a bill already sent. The gap between earned and paid, per brand, is the number that tells you who to chase, and how to invoice a brand for UGC (https://www.ugcflows.com/blog/ugc-invoice-guide) is the bill that does the chasing. ### How UGC Flows does it It is on both plans, from $199 a month, and the editing marketplace beside it is $3 a video, or $2 a video from 6 videos on one ticket. Not at four brands yet? How to become a UGC creator (https://www.ugcflows.com/blog/how-to-become-a-ugc-creator) is the first one, and the rate calculator (https://www.ugcflows.com/ugc-rate-calculator) is what to price it with. - Add the deal: The brand, the flat fee, the pay cycle and the net terms. - Type the rate sheet in as rules: Shape, rate, window, minimum, cap, per platform. Several rules on one deal is normal. - Paste the post links: One account per platform, one cut across all of them. - Let it read: Each account is read a few times a week, and every rule's window is computed off the daily rows. - Log the payout: The numbers freeze as text. The dashboard draws a calendar of what each day earned, with an untracked day drawn blank rather than as $0. ### Questions **Can I track UGC deals in a spreadsheet?** For one brand with a flat fee, yes. It breaks at the second brand, because a bonus window needs a view reading per video per day and a spreadsheet only ever holds the latest number. By the third brand the bonus is an estimate. **How often should I check views on a bonus deal?** Often enough to have a reading on or before every window edge. Every few days is enough for most rules, with a reading on the closing day of a fixed-date window, because the payout is computed off the newest snapshot at the edge. **What is the difference between earned and paid?** Earned is what the deal's rules say is owed as of today. Paid is what actually landed, frozen on the day it was logged. The gap between them per brand is the money to chase. ## Reuse Quote any of this with a link back to the page it came from. Every figure is checked by hand against campaigns running on this platform and is a floor rather than a rate card. Nothing here is legal or tax advice.